


Protective Custody

by Virodeil



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Stargate SG-1
Genre: A journey of slow healing, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Exploration, Gen, Guardian-Ward Relationship, Harry Potter Has a Different Name, Home, Hope, Hurt/Comfort, Other, POV Harry Potter, POV Third Person Limited, Past Child Abuse, Past Child Neglect, Past Tense
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-07
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:42:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27432991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Virodeil/pseuds/Virodeil
Summary: The Prime Minister of the mundane world was more proactive about the threat of Sirius Black in 1993. She contacted an ally to help with one part of the problem, namely the safety of a thirteen-year-old boy who was said to be the criminal’s foremost target. The ally secreted him somewhere special… and things snowballed from there.
Relationships: Harry Potter & George Hammond, Harry Potter & Original Character(s), Other Relationship Tags to Be Added
Comments: 26
Kudos: 86





	1. Protective Custody

The first week of the summer holiday ran as per usual for one Harry James Potter of Privet Drive number four, Little Whinging, Surrey, England; young wizard in training, famous – and _in_ famous – boy in a hidden community of magic users, orphan child living under the sufferance of his maternal relatives since he had been slightly beyond a year old…. Well, _anyway_ , the week was ordinary, for Harry: chores, absolutely no mention of magic, more chores, and two letters respectively from his best friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger.

Hermione was starting her family holiday in France, while Ron’s father had won the family a lucky draw at the Daily Prophet and was bringing the whole family to Egypt for the summer.

Harry tried not to be jealous with their familial fun, as he served his own relatives like he imagined Dobby had served the Malfoys.

It all changed in the second week, though. The news of an escape criminal named Sirius Black roaming the community at large heralded a slew of sharp, rapid changes that utterly stunned the soon-to-be thirteen-year-old.

First, on the morning of the beginning of the second week, hours after the news of Sirius Black had been aired, somebody came ringing the door bell of Privet Drive number four. Harry had just finished making breakfast for the Dursleys, at that time, and the only one awake in the house beside him was Aunt Petunia. She ordered him to be out of sight and out of mind in his bedroom, as per usual whenever there was a guest coming, invited or not, so he skedaddled there with all alacrity. Not because he wasn’t interested in whoever at the front door, though, or relished being cooped in what had used to be Dudley’s second bedroom and was still very much a storage area for his cousin’s things. He just didn’t relish being the target of Uncle Vernon’s and Dudley’s ire for being woken up by the door bell… which was ringing again, in the space of just five minutes.

The sounds from downstairs were only murmurs, at the beginning, mostly drowned by the grumblings and thumps coming from the two other occupied bedrooms. Aunt Petunia’s voice soon rose in offence, though, and it attracted Uncle Vernon’s attention. And, perched on his rickety bed in the smallest bedroom of Privet Drive number four, Harry winced, bracing himself up for some unpleasantness soon to be meted out on him, or blamed on him.

And he was indeed called downstairs, barely ten minutes after Uncle Vernon stomped there to join his offended wife.

` _Oh well,_ ` he thought resignedly, while shoving his precious two letters into the hidy-hole under the loose floorboard, to join his Invisibility Cloak, photo album, wand and money pouch. “Coming, Aunt Petunia!”

He was met by a stranger at the bottom of the stairs, instead of Aunt Petunia. She was a sharp woman in a sharp office attire, and she greeted him with sharp, assessing gaze that reminded him of McGonagall in a displeased mood.

“Jemima Strides, Mister Potter,” she said shortly on his quizzical look. “Now come. There are many things that we must do this morning.”

Harry followed her to the living room like a puzzled ugly duckling behind his irritated mother.

And, in the destination, before he could even take in his surroundings, he was confronted by a sheaf of paper at the hand of Aunt Petunia, and all that his aunt said on the face of his gobsmacked look was, “Pack your things. Your kind wants you. They said you are a possible target for Black. I say good riddance.”

And, just so, aided by an unspeaking Jemima Strides, the dazed boy packed up the few things he had in his current bedroom including Hedwig’s empty cage, before retrieving his trunk from his former bedroom which was the cupboard under the stairs. He was garbed in his nicest Muggle clothing, too, now; all of course Dudley’s castoffs, thus at least a few sizes larger and already rather shabby, but… nicer than the rest.

He looked back at Privet Drive number four after ducking into the idling car parked outside, having overseen his belongings – the Hogwarts trunk and his backpack – put in the boot of the said car. None of the Dursleys was there to see him off, though, even to throw a last insult at him.

He felt… hollow, nothing, too numb to feel anything else.

He was silent through the ride, and so were his escorts – Jemima Strides who was seated with him at the back and two men in unknown uniform seated in front.

Somehow, he couldn’t muster up any expression, either, when they arrive at the airport, instead of another house or the Leaky Cauldron. The only sign that he registered where he was and how odd it was was his eyes blinking slowly, twice.

He remained mute, too, when Jemima Strides, under the cover of the boot’s door and the back fence of the Airport’s parking lot, switched the contents of his backpack with the clothes stored in the trunk, before getting out a wand from what must be an invisible holster and shrinking the latter plus the cage.

His eyes widened when, after stuffing the miniaturised trunk and cage into the midst of the clothes in the backpack, the woman dropped to an almost kneeling position before him and put her hands on his shoulders. But he found his voice – at long last – after she told him that she would be looking into his former living condition with the Dursleys, and henceforth – at least till “the situation” was resolved – he would be Henry Howard Hammond.

Still, all that he got out was, “Where am I going?”

He hated that his voice croaked and whispered. He hated that he felt too numb and dazed to think of anything else and say anything else because of these whiplash changes to his life, despite all the hair-rising misadventures he had had at Hogwarts.

He hated that he did _nothing_ when he was brought into the back of a neighbouring van and basically made anew: a name only passingly similar to his own, dark-blond hair dye, deep-blue contact lenses, a backpack full of entirely new paperwork and necessities, Muggle concealer for his lightning-bolt scar, and a suitcase full of not only old-seeming new clothes but also a glimpse to a life not of his own. He even got a cover story for “Henry Hammond,” namely that he was a new orphan of a car accident that had killed his parents, now sent to live with his second cousin George Hammond and the latter’s family till he was eighteen. And he _didn’t_ get to keep his things, after all, even his wand, though the people in the van promised to send those to him after they knew very well that _all_ the items were clean of any tampering.

A whisper of a thought passed across the fore of his mind as he found himself seated in a commercial passenger aeroplane headed to Colorado, with Jemima Strides seated beside him: ` _Is this how a clueless lamb feels when it’s about to be slaughtered?_ ` And still, _he did nothing_.

He couldn’t do anything; a living puppet riding in the aeroplane, stepping on foreign soil for the first time in his life, meeting his new “family,” riding on the back seat of a car, arriving at a modestly large house with even larger yards to all sides, getting installed in a room that was as large as Dudley’s but far neater and far emtpier….

He was left totally alone only when night came, after a brief shower, an awkward dinner with the Hammonds, a “movie night,” and a novel and embarrassing but secretly cherished bedtime reading with “Cousin Jennifer” – single mother of ten-year-old Andria and six-year-old Kayla, daughter of US Air Force Major General George Hammond. But, contrary to his earlier expectation, vague as it had been, being alone didn’t give him the reprieve that he’d wished for, the return to “normal” that he’d hoped for. In fact, he spent an inordinate amount of time just staring blankly at the unfamiliar ceiling in this unfamiliar place with its unfamiliar sounds and smells and senses.

“Good riddance,” his _maternal aunt_ had said; a blood kin, the _living_ elder sister of his mother, the one who had housed and fed and clothed him for twelve years, if _highly_ reluctantly.

Early in his childhood, he had wished to be accepted by the Dursleys despite all the punishments and chores and belittlement, if there’s nobody else who would take him in. Even when he had been enrolled at Hogwarts and suffered increased persecution from them, he had endured, telling himself that at least he had roof and food and clothes to call his own, however pitiful his portions were. But now….

He wasn’t sure if he could go back to Privet Drive, or if he _wanted_ to do so. “Protective custody,” Jemima Strides had explained to him in the van in her brisk manner, regarding his sudden and speedy departure to be somebody else somewhere else. And if he was to be protected _here_ ….

Life could be so funny, sometimes. Uncaring relatives, a mad elf and a basilisk couldn’t push him away from his homeland, from himself, from all familiarity, but this Sirius Black, this unknown criminal….

He shivered.

It seemed that he hated _and feared_ to be alone in a strange place the most, after all.


	2. Not Alone

Nobody woke up the new resident of the house, the next day. He was left to wake up naturally, after a restless sleep that sadly hadn’t replenished much of his energy and composure.

Now, he found out that waking up _hopeless_ in an alien environment after such a fraught experience like he’d had before going to bed was _petrifying_. And while the dread he’d felt waking up in his four-poster bed in his dorm room at Gryffindor Tower for the first few times had been soothed by the promise of attending _magical_ lessons in a _magical_ castle, the _bigger_ dread of waking up in this foreign house in this foreign land which he shared with foreign people was _amplified_ instead with the knowledge that he was going to experience this for the _far_ foreseeable future. Without hope to reconnect with his friends, at that, as Hedwig couldn’t possibly fly this far – poor, poor Hedwig.

Still, he wouldn’t – _couldn’t_ – be a bad houseguest, lazing about all day in this big, comfy, _air-conditioned_ bedroom that they had so graciously lent him. He had to get up and… well, maybe they would have chores for him to do, like the Dursleys had made him do, and like the Weasley children sometimes did. He certainly wouldn’t have breakfast, as the sunlight filtering through the heavy cream curtain of the lone window by his bed – no, _the_ bed – was too strong for early morning, but he was used to having little to eat, anyway, while with the Dursleys.

With that thought firmly in mind, which made for a _familiar_ plan on a _familiar_ path, his petrification dissipated slowly but surely and, soon, he could unlock his muscles to do the motions of getting up and inspecting himself.

The suitcase had included three sets of pyjamas, and “Cousin Jennifer” had ordered him – though in much nicer words than what Aunt Petunia would have said – to dress in a pair of those before bed, after taking off his contact lenses, but he was sure he shouldn’t do chores in pyjamas, so he tentatively peeked into the suitcase and contemplated what he ought to wear now. _Everything_ in it was alien, though, _not his_ , even down to the suitcase itself, and he was hesitant even to just touch it; it would be like stealing and wearing and using somebody else’s things. Last night, he had been ironically saved from this by the numbness he’d been in all day; but today, with a plan in mind, he couldn’t avoid _feeling_ and _thinking_.

But he couldn’t dither all day, too, could he? Just like he couldn’t laze about.

“Well, I’m now Henry Hammond, aren’t I? These things are supposed to be _mine_ , aren’t they?” He said aloud to himself, slowly, trying to instill it in his mind meanwhile.

And then, at long last, he selected a blue polo shirt that matched the contact lenses he _mustn’t_ forget to wear, also a pair of grey slacks that looked formal enough but bearable in a summer day, especially if he needed to do chores, and the black-and-white trainers plus the blue striped socks he’d worn yesterday.

Having taken a shower and looking more or less presentable didn’t make him less awkward and unsure, though, it turned out. Worse, he’d forgotten to turn off the air conditioner before exiting the bedroom – what an ungrateful brat indeed!

He looked round the hallway beyond the bedroom after hurriedly rectifying his mistake, but it was _still_ as empty and clean as when he’d traversed it to go to the shared bathroom for this floor – the second and topmost story of the house. The other three bedrooms on this floor were empty – _and open_ – as well, and the open sitting area by the stairs wasn’t occupied. _And_ he could hear nothing from downstairs, except for occasional bird noises outside and even rarer sounds of traffic farther away.

` _Have I been abandoned **again**? Here?_`

His heart turned to ice, it felt, and plopped to the bottom of his belly.

But still, he went down the stairs, to check, to see for himself, to face whatever he was going to face, just like months ago in the Chamber.

Undesirable states, events and chores wouldn’t leave simply by his wish, after all, however fervently he wished it, or his stay with the Dursleys and a part of his schooling at Hogwarts wouldn’t have been so aweful. He simply must _do_ it; or rather, _bear_ with it. And just like before, he couldn’t turn to an adult for help.

Still, it was awefully hard to bear, when downstairs – the living room, the dining room, the kitchen, the two studies, even the downstairs bathroom and the washing room – turned out to be as empty as upstairs; with no note left signifying where the people from the previous day were gone to, at that.

On one hand, it was surprising, to be seemingly entrusted with the house while the family were out. But on the other hand….

His breath hitched.

` _No, I’m just overreacting. There must be a reason. Maybe they thought to be decent by not waking me up before they went out for lunch. I should do the decent thing, too, then, shouldn’t I? There’s no dishes to wash, no clothes to wash either, and everything’s clean, but maybe I could tidy up the yards?_ `

He went to the back door, with his trembling hands clenched inside his trouser pockets.

But, before he could make himself open the door, it opened from outside, nearly hitting him as it swung inward.

And “Cousin Jennifer” stood there, carrying a few books in one arm, staring at him with surprise and confusion that quickly turned into apology and worry.

The awkward standoff didn’t last long. But, unlike with Aunt Petunia, what _this_ woman said was, “Oh! Sorry there, Harry – may I call you Harry? I didn’t hear you wake up, so I thought the kitchen’s still empty. – Um, are you going somewhere? Is it urgent? You’ve just arrived. Can it wait? I’ll drive you, if it’s urgent. But if not, can you wait till tomorrow at least? You looked so tired, I’m just worried for you. – Oh! You haven’t had lunch, have you? Come on, I’ll make us something. Do you mind eating sandwiches? It’s a nice day outside, if you’d like to have a picnic in the back garden. Think I’ve got some lemonade left in the fridge, if the girls haven’t drunk it all. They’re over at their friends’ for the day, so it’s just us till dinnertime, but Daddy said he’ll join us after lunch if he can.”

She was as bubbly as Hermione, especially when nervous like this, but she didn’t immediately usher this invader of the household away somewhere, or dictate what he ought to do, unlike Hermione and Mrs. Weasley, let alone Aunt Petunia.

And he really, really, really didn’t know what to do with this type of woman.

“Um, no, Ma’am, it’s all right,” he stammered, making use of one of his stock phrases for whenever he was stumped or would like to avoid certain things. “Um, just, thank you so much for having me here for the night. I’m so sorry I was a bad guest yesterday. Um, could I help you, Ma’am? If you haven’t had lunch yet, I could make it for you?”

The lady of the house frowned. But even her frown was different from the other females’ in his life.

“If it’s okay with you, maybe we could have a picnic together, just the two of us?” she offered. She sounded just as awkward and tentative as he was! If he hadn’t heard it himself, he wouldn’t have believed it. But even though he’d heard it just now, he could barely believe it!

They ended up making the sandwiches – _experimenting_ with the sandwiches – together, and ate the resulting food together in the tree house on the back yard, and talked together about things from gardening tricks to highlights of their respective lives meanwhile, and Harry felt like he’d been dropped into a prolonged state of dreaming.

It was a nice dream, though, and he’d rather stay dreaming forever than returning to consciousness only to find himself back inside Privet Drive number four.

It was made _even better_ when, shortly after lunch, Major General George Hammond, the lord of the house and Cousin Jennifer’s father, joined them _especially_ to show _him_ – the freak, the unwanted boy – round the city.

He felt special.

This dream was special.


	3. Settling In

Days flew by, and Harry settled into his new life as Henry “Harry” Hammond hesitantly, uneasily, with lots of stumbling and awkward moments, but _he settled in_.

Andria and Kayla, ten and six years old respectively, were all active girls who liked to run round playing in the yards, and they often roped him into doing the same. They were a breath of fresh air when he happened to hit an awkward patch with the adults, and the self-centredness they often exhibited – in the way that they had their own worlds and concerns and didn’t have any desire to pry into others, though, not that they didn’t have the slightest care about other people – was _really_ nice, too. “Cousin Jenny” and “Grandpa George” Hammond were nice, he supposed, not smothering or condescending or uncaring or constantly ordering him to do this or that, but…. Well, he just wasn’t used to this kind of adults, and it’s not nice, that way.

He had no specific chores in this household, and it just made him more awkward and lost, oftentimes. The cleaning and washing and general upkeep of the yards were done by a trio of daily helpers. The children of the family – that included _him_ , here, somehow, unbelievably, although he knew logically that he was indeed _supposed_ to be a Hammond now – were only required to keep their rooms clean and tidy and help in little things, like bringing the rubbish bags to the big rubbish bin outside on the corner of the front yard, preparing some steps of a random meal they wanted to help in, and washing their own eating utensils after each meal just like the adults did. It was… too tame, for his usual summertime.

He supposed this was rather similar to what he had experienced at the Burrow; but there, he’d got friends to spend the time with and summer homework to complete, unlike here. He didn’t even have Hedwig here, and neither did he know what he was going to do once school started, or what he was to prepare _if_ he was going to Muggle school here in the United States.

He read lots, when the girls were occupied and he was left too long with the adults. Fortunately, the house had a small library nook he could sequester himself in, and it was home to an eclectic array of books from magazines and cookbooks to textbooks and dictionaries. Slowly but surely, he went back to his old habbit of hiding among books, like when Dudley’s gang had gone Harry Hunting on him in primary school, and absorbing as much knowledge as he could while at it. Just, now, he was well fed and much better dressed, and under scrutiny from _well-meaning_ instead of _disapproving_ adults.

And then, one day, just as his new life began to settle into a rhythm, the family wacked it out of the rail again.

By giving him _presents_.

To _celebrate_ a month of his presence there.

Andria gave him a wobbly candid picture she’d taken of him cosily reading an encyclopedia about the outer space at the library nook. And meanwhile, Kayla gave him a photo frame to go with it, made up of ice-cream sticks arranged side by side and glued together, painstakingly painted with silver swirls over blue background, with a sheet of plastic cut by Andria to mimic the glass front of a usual frame to complete it.

Cousin Jenny gifted him with a patchwork blanket she’d handsewn herself. To decorate _his room_ with, she said. After all, he’d refused her offer on the first day to personalise the bedroom he was in as _his_ , she pointed out further, adding that the offer still stood as long as the house was still theirs. _And_ she promised to make a matching pillowcase and sheet, if he wanted them.

Grandpa George had baked _him_ an apple pie, with “ **1 MONTH** ” written with cheese pasta on the crust, and he’d forbidden _anybody_ – even himself from tasting it, unless Harry allowed it, which Harry could always _not_ do since it was _his_ gift, the kindly man said quite firmly. The US Air Force general, the chef of the family, also made the cream soup that Harry had grown to like so much for their breakfast together. And after breakfast, Grandpa George promised that he and Harry were going to tour the Air Force Academy the general had graduated from, which Harry had grown to be interested in from the snippets the general had brought home from the man’s workplace there.

Everything felt surreal, _un_ real, even ludicrous.

His heart burnt. His eyes burnt. It was so hard to breathe, as well.

He clutched the patchwork blanket and the photo frame flush against his chest, and stared mutely at the “ **1 MONTH** ” thick, blocky lettering on the crust of the still-steaming pie laid before him on the edge of the breakfast table.

He was aware that his cheeks were wet only when, letting out a small, strangled sob, Cousin Jenny wrapped him in a bear hug then made the whole family participate in what Andria later termed as a “group hug”. Even _Grandpa George_ participated, and it was the first time _ever_ that Harry felt how it was to be hugged by a male authority figure.

He cherished it, even more than the other gifts he was given that day, even more than the promised tour that Grandpa George brought him afterwards.

But he was hard-pressed to say which was better, when Grandpa George introduced him – casually but with not a sliver of doubt in the man’s voice or expression – at the academy that Harry was _his new grandson_.

And the man was positively _sunshiny_ when Harry found an alternative hobby _as well as_ an extension of his talent in the flight simulation.

He couldn’t say he liked the attention, just like before, but this was more familiar – the admiration on his flight capability – and it didn’t have the boy-who-lived baggage with it, at that.

Just “the general’s grandson” one, but in a way it was better, since he understood why it’s that way, and it meant _he had good living family to call his own_ , and this particular ticket netted him a promise of being able to use the delightful machine whenever the cadets weren’t using it.

The bedroom he stayed in – _his_ bedroom – gained a new look, in the days after, as well as some new trinkets. The things were all supplied by Grandpa George and Cousin Jenny, but arranged by _Harry himself_ in the room to his liking. Walking into the room now felt like walking onto a patch of fat white cloud amidst a blue, blue sky, with a few scale models of aeroplanes hanging from the ceiling to complete the ambience. It’s made perfect when Kayla squealed upon coming into the room for the first time and immediately rolled about on the cloud-like carpeting on the floor, declaring that she was a fairy princess riding on her personal cloud and Harry was her bodyguard.

Everything’s so new, and uncomfortable more often than not because of it, but it’s good, and it’s _his_. He didn’t forget Hogwarts and his friends and his Wizarding heritage, and he longed for them sometimes, but at the same time he didn’t want the summer to end and for the Wizarding folk back there to notice his absence, too. Because he was living a very good dream and didn’t want to wake up again.


	4. Popping Bubbles, Part 1

As July inched to a close, Harry found himself more and more silent and melancholic.

His birthday – his _real_ birthday – was so near. And nobody would know but him, for security’s sake. He daren’t even celebrate it, for fear of it leaking it to the wrong ears by osmosis.

In a way, it was no different from all the birthdays he’d “celebrated” while with the Dursleys, before Hogwarts, before he had people who cared to – _sincerely_ – wish him a happy birthday, let alone giving him presents. They’d always ignored his birthdays before he’d known when it was, and either ignored or taunted him about it after he’d found out, when his primary-school teacher had bemusedly and somewhat condescendingly informed him on the first day of class.

But it was _just_ one way of looking at it. Because, despite the _very_ rocky beginning, he’d never had such an awesome summer. Privately, he thought that this was shaping up to be a better summer than the fortnight he’d spent at the Burrow, even. For one, however false and temporary it was despite his wistful wish otherwise, he had a _family_ here and he _wasn’t sharing it with anybody_ or looking in from the outside.

They were not his blood relatives, but seemed to want him round regardless, protective custody notwithstanding.

This afternoon, for example, Andria cancelled her play-date to instead “conduct a mission” – the cheeky, smart, confident little princess, she was borrowing that turn of phrase from her grandpa, no doubt – to cheer him up alongside her little sister. “You’ve been moping about long enough, Harry,” she said in her bossiest, most serious tone and look. Then she towed him to the tree house, to give it a “summery feel” with the homemade decoration they were going to make, as their sitter for the day – one of the neighbours, a twenty-year-old girl home for the summer in a holiday break from uni – trailled sedately behind them.

_Cousin Jenny_ even joined in the decorating project for a while, when she was home for the day early in the evening. She even got them and the neighbour to play pop-the-bubbles when they were done, with her and the sitter as the bubblers and “the kids” as the ones chasing and popping the bubbles the two made, before she ushered all of them to the dining room, where Grandpa George was waiting with dinner ready, and also a hug for each of his grandchildren – _and Harry was **still** included in that category_.

It’s _far_ more than his blood relatives had ever done for him. So, _in the way that counted_ , this whole protective custody thing was already a birthday gift, party and wish gone true for him, all at once.

**O-O-O-O**

Harry welcomed the first minute of the thirty-first of July with a count of how lucky he was: He was alive, comfy and safe… and even _happy_ , for the most part. He was free from the Dursleys and Little Whinging possibly forever. He got a room for himself, which he had _also_ decorated himself, and a family who cared for him, _here_ , and he’d never gone hungry, without necessities, or even without _non_ -necessities yet. He’d just come up with a way to wish Hermione happy birthday on the nineteenth of September, too, if he couldn’t go to Hogwarts, by sending an international mail from a PO box somewhere on the other side of the United States to the Grangers’ address, if Grandpa George would help him do it. He’d send Ron’s a few months after, through the same way, with the hope that the Grangers would be so kind as to forward it to Ron at Hogwarts. He might even be able to send gifts, if he could get some summer job before September came.

Buoyed by the thoughts – his self-given birthday gift – and eager to welcome the day, he bounded out of bed and made his stealthy way to the bathroom for his morning ablutions. He’d planned to surprise the Hammonds with a nice breakfast, but one that he could make without too much noise or smell since the family were all light sleepers and big eaters, except for Cousin Jenny. He’d even planned to bake a marble cake, since a birthday cake would’ve been too obvious.

Noting that everybody was still asleep, he’d forgone his coloured contact lenses, instead wearing the pair of specs Cousin Jenny had bought for him when she’d observed that he felt uncomfortable putting things on his eyes. And now he skipped on bare feet from counter to counter in the large, airy kitchen as he prepared the parts that needed to stew and bake for a while, feeling more like himself than he had been all this summer. His hair was still reddish at the tips, and he’d need to re-dye it when he next tagged along with Grandpa George to the academy to play about with the flight sims again, but it’s as messy as ever, regardless, and it’s all right. It’s all _all right_.

Well, he was doing one of the chores that he’d resented while with the Dursleys, but it _wasn’t_ a chore, here, he felt. It was a _thank-you gift_ instead. At least it’s what he meant this to be for the Hammonds. They’d certainly _not_ even asked him to make meals for them. In fact, this was usually Grandpa George’s thing, and he’d have to apologise to the kindly old man for usurping it for a little while later.

Memories of the man – a _general_! – humming and singing cheerfully while puttering in the kitchen in a worn-but-comfy-looking T-shirt and a pair of knee-length breeches, making and baking dishes, made him grin and barely stifle the giggle.

Grandpa George was certainly _not_ Uncle Vernon, although the general wasn’t a thin man by any means.

Harry _did_ giggle, then, unable to muffle it with just his will and his pursed lips and his hands, but thankfully nobody woke up from the noise.

He tiptoed back up to his room, taking the stairs two at a time with a bounce, when he was done with breakfast preparations. The dishes just needed to be reheated later, and his first plan for the day – _his birthday_ – was _done_.

He rarely felt so accomplished.


	5. Popping Bubbles, Part 2

What Harry found in his room upon opening the door _did_ make him make a loud noise, though.

And Grandpa George was there, just so, in pyjamas and bedhead, _toting a pistol in a way that seemed to mean serious business_.

He hurriedly closed his room’s door and stammered to the kindly old man that he was fine, and he had only been startled by his own shadow spilling in from the hallway.

Grandpa George narrowed his eyes to that, though, and Harry’s heart sank.

It sank further when the old man – the _general_ – said shrewdly, “Harry, I am responsible for this place and everyone in it, just like I am responsible for the academy till next year, when I’ll get into retirement. Jenny and I are responsible for you till you are eighteen, too, and the girls till they are of the same age. So I _need_ to know what made you so high-strung this last month, and what made you scream just now.”

` _This last month._ ` Harry’s heart not only sank, but _plopped_ right to his bare feet, it felt. ` _He watched._ ` It’s an alien concept for him, to be watched so closely during the summer, and apparently _not_ for a malicious reason like what Aunt Petunia had used to do or to feed the rumour mills like the people at Hogwarts did. It’s a little intrusive for him despite the reason behind it, but, well, what could he do? He _hadn’t_ been able to do what he wanted since… well, forever.

“Let me at least check the room, Harry,” the general finished, and the tone made the boy obey.

For a second, that was.

“Wait, Grandpa, please, no,” he begged the moment he realised, hurriedly returning to his post in front of the now-closed door, fending the general – _who was about to come into the room pistol first_ – off with a faintly trembling hand. He _still_ remembered how his unexpected, uninvited visitor – _this_ visitor – had tried to “save” him from dangers, and he _absolutely did not want_ this kindly old man to be some collateral damage. He didn’t want the visitor – however uninvited – to be accidentally shot in his defence, either. ` _Damn it, and I was having the best dream in my life, short of meeting my parents again in the flesh!_ `

The general’s eyes narrowed again with… suspicion? Concern?… and _still did not back down_ , although the pistol had been aimed safely away from Harry the moment he’d positioned himself in front of the door.

“Explain,” was the old man’s curt demand, and Harry took a deep breath.

“What do you know of why I’m here?” he ask back, warily, trepidatiously. ` _Did the Muggle Ministry tell him about me being a wizard? Is Black the escape dangerous criminal actually a wizard? Aunt Petunia said my kind wanted me, but I was greeted by Muggles instead…._ `

“That you have been hunted by bad elements in your society since you were a baby,” the general said impatiently.

“My society,” Harry repeated before the general could follow the curt words with yet another demand to come in.

“The one they call ‘the Wizarding World’.” Oh, Harry could _clearly_ see the air-quotes and the scepticism….

“It’s true, you know,” he murmured, looking away. “Not a code-word. I’m a wizard.”

“Then?” The impatience seemed to reach a new high, now, and the boy winced. Uncle Vernon would have _exploded_ by now and it would have meant a world of hurt for him.

Thoughts of Uncle Vernon flew out of his mind, though, in the next second, when the general said in the same impatient tone, which made it all the more convincing, “Wizard or not, you’re still my grandson, and if you don’t step away right now, I _won’t_ bring you to the academy until I have retired.”

Harry winced again. Grandpa George knew where to hit and apparently didn’t hesitate from applying the knowledge! He _really_ didn’t want the threat to be true, but he also didn’t want anybody to end up hurt after this. So, “Grandpa, there’s my owl and… well, a little elf, inside. They’re my friends. Please don’t hurt them? They just startled me. I didn’t know they could come here or how they found me. But Hedwig could always find me so I guess Dobby just followed her. I just didn’t know they could travel across the ocean.” If they could, then witches and wizards could, most likely, but he’d worry about the latter later.

On Grandpa George’s questioning look, peeking through the palpable impatience, the increasingly nervous boy hastily explained, “Hedwig’s my owl, a snowy. Dobby’s a house-elf – green-skinned, three-foot-high, a former slave of a bad wizard.”

Judging by how the pistol’s safety pin was clicked on now – ` _I was right! Grandpa George was about to shoot them!_ ` – the general was _thankfully_ mollified.

Harry was _still_ ordered to step aside, though.

And the moment they were inside – Grandpa George first, despite Harry’s protests – the general immediately went into… well, general-mode, despite Dobby’s looks and Hedwig perched upon the… blanket?… the house-elf used as a turban. Without allowing Harry to step away from behind him, he interrogated Dobby about who the latter was to Harry, where Dobby had met Hedwig, why they had come here, how they had tracked Harry down, if they had been spotted or tailed on their way here…. Harry tried to interrupt, several times, but got shushed each time.

He got to admit, though, this way, he got _lots_ of potentially useful info, and he _might_ just use these questions later on if he _ever_ had need of them.

He listened interestedly as Dobby told a tale of what seemed to him quite an enviable adventure: Not finding any job as a free elf, Dobby had visited Hogwarts for employment, only to hear tell of the escape of the fearsome and insanely dangerous Sirius Black, a former good friend of the Potters and even _Harry’s godfather_. He had decided to try to protect “the Great Harry Potter Sir” instead, then, and had travelled to Privet Drive number four to make sure that his hero was safe, only to find the latter gone and irritated Hedwig making the occasional loops round the house. They had travelled together via “popping” and flying, afterwards, respectively, by unspoken agreement, until they had arrived to the edge of the Atlantic ocean. To go past this obstacle, they had hitchhiked on a liner headed to where Hedwig had indicated Harry was, and Dobby himself had felt it – which made Harry suspicious, but he wasn’t about to interrupt again, by this point. But then Hedwig had seemed to have sensed somebody wanting to send something for Harry for his birthday, so both owl and house-elf had travelled back the way they had come and gone to France to fetch the gift from Hermione. Dobby had wanted to come immediately to “the Great Harry Potter Sir’s new home,” but Hedwig had insisted on waiting for the proper time, and the proper time was apparently was on Harry’s birthday, which was today.

To think, Harry had done all he could to conceal this titbit of information from the Hammonds _for their own protection_ ….

“We’ll talk after this, grandson,” was Grandpa George’s only remark to the formerly hidden piece of info, delivered in a deceptively calm manner, and Harry winced _yet again_ on that tone and the threat _and disappointment_ contained within.

He all-out _cringed_ when the general ` _yup, definitely **the** General._` – proceeded to demand an oath from Dobby to protect Harry to the house-elf’s best ability without harming either party if possible. Dobby needn’t that! And _of course_ the house-elf eagerly swore the vow.

And then, both began to plan how to best keep Harry safe.

Harry could only stare wide-eyed at the broad back of his lunatic grandfather, all the while, and thought, ` _Damn, they should’ve **never** met! Dobby should’ve been just a dotty elf too intent on my safety in his own warped way and Grandpa should’ve been **just** some old Muggle! Somebody, please get me out of this weird dream!_`


End file.
